Dealing with Major Market Shifts: Aphrodite’s CEO Jonathan Foltz (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: For the digital agency, how were you acquiring your clients?

Jonathan Foltz: No one believes me when I say this. It started off with friends and people I knew. I never marketed, ever.

Sramana Mitra: What year was this?

Jonathan Foltz: We started in 2009. 2010 and further was when things started to accelerate.

Sramana Mitra: You were hiring people on Upwork?

Jonathan Foltz: Upwork ended up buying Elance. We were working with Elance before it got purchased by Upwork. I was using different websites on the internet, but it was mostly Elance. My very first employee was from the Philippines. I had met her online. She worked as a translator.

One day, I got to a point where we were getting by and asked her to come in full-time. From there, I realized that this arbitrage opportunity was great. We were doing such good work. Even though I was making off of everything, the work and the quality was so good that the way that I was getting work was by my circle telling other people. We even got to a point in time where I was turning down 80% to 90% of the clients. I tend to like working with businesses that have true value.

I had an eye for perfection. I would love to make sure that I go the extra mile. I went top level. I remember meeting one of the companies that I met on Elance. He was just more expensive than other people, but he was so good. He ended up quitting his own agency to come on board. It just made sense for him to come on board.

Sramana Mitra: What were the specifics of that company? You had people in the Philippines. What was the configuration?

Jonathan Foltz: It was super-virtual. Until 2016, I still had the reptile company. During that time, I had met a company overseas called Offroads Studios in Pakistan. I became really good friends with my current partner. I started using them for higher-end jobs. Believe it or not, I was working with high-end political figures. We worked with Fortune 500 companies. What I was doing was just arbitrage. I was getting really good at connecting the dots.

Sramana Mitra: Was it just you?

Jonathan Foltz: We started to build a team. Around 2012 to 2013, I met my business partner. I had a couple of employees who were working with us. I brought him on as a partner. The mission of Digital Age has been to bridge the gap between technology and mankind’s wisdom.

Sramana Mitra: In 2009, you started as a solo entrepreneur. You worked with these agencies. In 2012, one of those partners became your partner in Digital Age.

Jonathan Foltz: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: At that point, what was your revenue?

Jonathan Foltz: Our revenue was around $300,000 between both companies. A lot of it was more from the reptile side. It wasn’t until 2016 that I sold the reptile company and I got into e-commerce. That’s where things started to get a little crazier. We started one in the reptile industry. We did horribly. It didn’t go well, but it taught me about Shopify.

Secondly, we did a parity store on politics. It was good timing in 2016. That company went from zero to $90,000 in two weeks. We launched a new e-commerce store which was called Pandora’s Box at that time. In the first three weeks, we did a quarter million dollars.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Dealing with Major Market Shifts: Aphrodite's CEO Jonathan Foltz
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